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Organ Harvesting: Ekweremadu sue NIMC, others

Published

4 years ago

June 28, 2022

Former Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, and his wife, Beatrice, have filed a lawsuit against the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS); Stanbic-IBTC Bank; United Bank of Africa (UBA) and Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System over the controversy surrounding the real age of the kidney donor of their ailing daughter, David Nwamini Ukpo.

The Ekweremadus were arrested on June 21 and arraigned before the Uxbridge Magistrate court in the United Kingdom for alleged conspiracy to facilitate the travel of Ukpo, alleged to be minor, for organ harvesting. The couple, however, denied the allegations and the court adjourned till July 7 for a hearing.

Trouble started for the couple when the donor went to the police to claim he was a 15 year old homeless boy brought from Lagos by the couple and that he was being treated like a slave in the UK.

In the lawsuit marked: FHC/ABJ/CS/984/2022, dated and filed June 27 by their counsel, Adegboyega Awomolo, SAN, before Justice Inyang Ekwo of a Federal High Court, Abuja, the Ekweremadus prayed the court for an order directing the NIMC to supply them with the Certified True Copy (CTC) of the biodata information of David Nwamini Ukpo. Others mentioned in the suit are the Comptroller General (C-G), Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS); Stanbic-IBTC Bank; United Bank of Africa (UBA) and Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System Plc as 2nd to 5th respondents respectively.

In the court papers, the couple said Ukpo’s National Identification Number (NIN):19438077110, which is in the possession of the agency, should be produced for the purpose of facilitating the criminal investigation and tendering same to establish their innocence with respect to Ukpo’s age in the criminal charges against them before the Uxbridge Magistrate Court.

They also sought an order directing the NIS C-G to supply the applicants with the documents and application form of David Nwamini Ukpo in the possession of the 2nd respondent presented for the issuance of International passport No. BO0569974 for the purpose of assisting criminal investigation and tendering same before the Uxbridge Magistrate Court, UK until July 7 in the alleged criminal charge brought against the applicants.